Scientific Quotes

"A witty saying proves nothing."

The following are humorous (and sometimes serious too) quotes gathered from the Web, Usenet's personal .sig and other sources. Since it's all a big rip-off, I am assuming no copyright whatsoever. I don't even guarantee that they are accurate. Now that you've been warned, enjoy.

Astronomy & Space

"Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another." — Plato.

"All civilizations become either spacefaring or extinct." — Carl Sagan.

"Every generation of humans believed it had all the answers it needed, except for a few mysteries they assumed would be solved at any moment. And they all believed their ancestors were simplistic and deluded. What are the odds that you are the first generation of humans who will understand reality ?" — Scott Adams.

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." — Douglas Adams (1952—2001), British writer.The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Introduction.

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea." — Douglas Adams (1952—2001).

"There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened." — Douglas Adams (1952—2001).

"A scientist can discover a new star, but he cannot make one. He would have to ask an engineer to do that." — Gordon L. Glegg, American Engineer, 1969.

"Listen; there's a hell of a good universe next door: let's go." — E. E. Cummings (1894—1962), US poet.

"Last night as I lay in bed looking at the stars I thought 'Where the hell is the ceiling ?'"

"When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one, but you won't come up with a handful of mud either." — Leo Burnett.

"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars." — Les Brown.

"Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings." — Seen on a T-shirt.

"There are eight planets, unless of course you still count Pluto in which case there are nine million planets."

"The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program." — Larry Niven.

"The exploration and ultimate colonization of the solar system is the only future worthy of truly great nations at this time in history. The Soviets, who cannot even feed themselves, seem to understand this." — John S. Powers.

"NASA should simply send an unmanned probe to Mars containing a well-sealed, well-protected capsule containing a check for $1,000,000,[insert your favorite number of zeroes here], payable to bearer. The first person who manages to get there and collect it gets to keep it." — dpbsmith about placing humans on Mars.

"Why don't you light that candle ?" — Alan Shepard while waiting for the first american rocket to launch.

"My goal is simple. It is complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all." — Stephen Hawking.

"When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together." — Isaac Asimov.

"It's a good thing the guy in charge of naming galaxies was into chocolate bars and not Chinese food. Otherwise, the Milky Way might have been named Moo Goo Gui Pan, and who wants to have to learn about that ?" — Paul Paternoster.

"The rocket worked perfectly except for landing on the wrong planet." — Wernher von Braun upon learning that the first V-2 has successfully bombed London.

"I have learned to use the word 'impossible' with the greatest caution." — Wernher von Braun.

"There is just one thing I can promise you about the outer-space program: your tax dollar will go farther." — Wernher von Braun.

"Crash programs fail because they are based on theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby in a month." — Wernher von Braun.

"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down ? That's not my department." — Werner von Braun.

"Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing." — Werner von Braun.

"Our german scientists are better than their german scientists." — From the movie The right stuff.

"If you stacked all the US currency together, you could probably reach the moon, but I bet the Apollo program was still more economical." — Larry Baum.

'cos try as I might I don't seem to be able to phone home!

'cuz I'm too lazy to actually DO something with this computer of mine...

I can't get a date on this planet. Might as well try to find another one

It would be interesting to introduce a new sexual position or three if alien females were discovered

A few years ago some extraterrestrial sent me a bad cheque. With SETI I hope to find the bastard!

After they abducted me, they told me "don't call us, we'll call you." I've been waiting for five years. — Maybe they forgot about me. I don't think they even have my number. They sounded pretty important, so I figure I'll settle for SETI@home until they send me a personal message.

Aliens pinched my car after I'd been on a weekend long booze up. I want it back.

All that complicated looking data crawling across the screen really impresses my girlfriends.

As a HAM operator I would like to connect a new station

As an alien, I'm amused by this project you earthlings are engaged in...

Because in high school I was voted most likely to build my own spacecraft and abandon the planet Earth.

Because my girlfriend thinks it's dumb.

Because the idea is far more interesting than some boring "crack the million-bit encryption"

Best to know something about a stranger you'll possibly meet before you meet them.

Taxidermy is my hobby and I already have every terrestrial animal so I'll take any chance to augment my collection.

"We are still too close to the birth of the universe to be certain about its death." — J. D. Bernal.

"God could cause us considerable embarrassment by revealing all the secrets of nature to us: we should not know what to do for sheer apathy and boredom." — Goethe (Johann Wolfgang von; 1749-1832), German poet and dramatist.

"It is impossible to transcend the laws of nature. You can only determine that your understanding of nature has changed." — Nick Powers.

"Why is it that if someone tells you that there are 1 billion stars in the universe you will believe them, but if they tell you a wall has wet paint you will have to touch it to be sure ?"

"The universe is simple; it's the explanation that's complex."

"The scientific method makes one assumption, and one assumption only: the Universe obeys a set of rules. That's it. There is one corollary, and that is that if the Universe follows these rules, then those rules can be deduced by observing the way Universe behaves." — badastronomy.com.

"The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage." — Mark Russell.

"Louise: How did you get here?Johnny: Well, basically, there was this little dot, right? And the dot went bang and the bang expanded. Energy formed into matter, matter cooled, matter lived, the amoeba to fish, to fish to fowl, to fowl to frog, to frog to mammal, the mammal to monkey, to monkey to man, amo amas amat, quid pro quo, memento mori, ad infinitum, sprinkle on a little bit of grated cheese and leave under the grill till Doomsday." — Naked.

"Astronomers say the universe is finite, which is a comforting thought for those people who can't remember where they leave things." — Woody Allen.

"If you want to create an apple pie from scratch, you must first create an universe." — Carl Sagan.

"In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our Universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time." — Edward P. Tryon.

"Only in the US will you find people who think the moon landing was fake and wrestling is real." — t3hpwn.

"Photons have mass ?!? I didn't even know they were Catholic..."

"There is no light. The Sun sucks dark. In fact it sucks dark so hard that the friction of the dark moving to the Sun causes the Sun to be very hot. The flow of dark towards the Sun interrupted by the Earth causes the side of the Earth away from the Sun to accumulate dark, thus causing Night. As the Earth rotates the dark caught on the night side can then be pulled off, this causing the absence of dark known as Day.What we call light bulbs are truly dark suckers as well. That is why light bulbs are hot, just like the Sun. When a light bulb is full of dark and won't suck dark any more, it cools off. If you look in old light bulbs you can even seen the accumulation of dark.Dark is also heavier than water. This can be seen in the oceans where the deeper you go the darker it gets." — The eric conspiracy.

"I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown." — Woody Allen.

"What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth ? Judging from realistic simulations involving a sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will be pretty bad." — Dave Barry.

"We have seen pictures [of mars] where there there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe." — Dan Quayle.

"Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering." — Arthur C. Clarke.

"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us." — Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson).

"The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition." — Carl Sagan.

"READ THIS BEFORE OPENING PACKAGE: According to certain suggested versions of the grand unified theory, the primary particles constituting this product may decay to nothingness within the next 1032 Years." — Engineering warning labels.

"Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip around the Sun." — Bumper sticker.

Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole." — William Burroughs.

"If you think there are no new frontiers, watch a boy ring the front doorbell on his first date." — Olin Miller.

"During the heat of the space race in the 1960's, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration decided it needed a ball point pen to write in the zero gravity confines of its space capsules. After considerable research and development, the Astronaut Pen was developed at a cost of about $1 million U.S. The pen worked and also enjoyed some modest success as a novelty item back here on Earth.The Soviet Union, faced with the same problem, used a pencil."

"With every passing hour our solar system comes forty-three thousand miles closer to globular cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules, and still there are some misfits who continue to insist that there is no such thing as progress." — Ransom K. Ferm.

"If the Earth is the size of a pea in New York, then the Sun is a beachball 50m away, Pluto is 4km away, and the next nearest star is in Tokyo. Now shrink Pluto's orbit into a coffee cup; then our Milky Way Galaxy fills North America." — Wayne Hayes.

"A policeman pulls Werner Heisenberg over on the autobahn for speeding.Policeman: Sir, do you know how fast you were going ?Heisenberg: No, but I know exactly where I am."

"When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity." — Albert Einstein.

"If my theory of relativity is proven correct, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew." — Albert Einstein.

"The faster you go, the shorter you are." — Albert Einstein about Relativity.

"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once." — Albert Einstein.

"I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." — Stephen Jay Gould.

"The only physics Computer Science majors should comment on is maybe a brief discussion on the issues of electrons, physical limitations of spinning platters, and maybe what would happen if the dvd were to crash into the cd-rom." — patchezzzz.

"With the bomb squad, you can usually stop running after the first couple of blocks. If it involves the physics department, keep going."

"Einstein — the greatest Jew since Jesus. I have no doubt that Einstein's name will still be remembered and revered when Lloyd George, Foch and William Hohenzollern share with Charlie Chaplin that ineluctable oblivion which awaits the uncreative mind." — J. B. S. Haldane (1892—1964), British geneticist.

"Nature, and Nature's laws lay hid in night:God said: 'Let Newton be !' and all was light." — Alexander Pope (1688—1744), British poet."It did not last: the Devil howling 'Ho !Let Einstein be !' restored the status quo." — John Collings Squire (1884—1958), British journalist.

"That is how the atom is split. But what does it mean ? To us who think in terms of practical use it means — Nothing !" — Ritchie Calder (1898—1976), US engineer and sculptor. The Daily Herald, 27 June 1932.

"Man is slightly nearer to the atom than the stars. From his central position he can survey the grandest works of Nature with the astronomer, or the minutest works with the physicist." — Arthur Eddington (1882—1944), British astronomer.

"All that glitters is not gold, but at least it contains free electrons."

"I believe my theory of relativity to be true. But it will only be proved for certain in 1981, when I am dead." — Albert Einstein (1879—1955).

"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it ?" — Albert Einstein.

"They say that something as small as a butterfly beating its wings in China can cause a hurricane in America, so maybe we should go to China and kill all the butterflies, just to be safe." — Ken Advent.

"A vacuum can only exist, I imagine, by the things which enclose it." — Zelda Fitzgerald (1900-48), US writer.

"Shelley and Keats were the last English poets who were at all up to date in their chemical knowledge." — J. B. S. Haldane (1892—1964), British geneticist.

"I have a quantum car. Every time I look at the speedometer I get lost..."

"Science has 'explained' nothing; the more we know the more fantastic the world becomes and the profounder the surrounding darkness." — Aldous Huxley (1894—1964), British novelist.

"We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up to now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future." — Max Planck (1858—1947), German physicist.

"The simplest schoolboy is now familiar with truths for which Archimedes would have sacrificed his life." — Ernest Renan (1823-92), French philosopher and theologian.

"People must understand that science is inherently neither a potential for good nor for evil. It is a potential to be harnessed by man to do his bidding." — Glenn T. Seaborg (1912- ), US physicist.

"Modern Physics is an instrument of Jewry for the destruction of Nordic science... True physics is the creation of the German spirit." — Rudolphe Tomaschek, Nazi scientist (pathetic, heh ?).

"Whenever science makes a discovery, the devil grabs it while the angels are debating the best way to use it." — Alan Valentine.

"Classical physics has been superseded by quantum theory: quantum theory is verified by experiments. Experiments must be described in terms of classical physics." — C. F. von Weizsäcker (1912- ), German physicist and philosopher.

"If silicon had been a gas I should have been a major-general." — James Whistler (1834—1903), US painter. Referring to his failure in a West Point chemistry examination.

"The airplane stays up because it doesn't have the time to fall." — Orville Wright (1871—1948), US aviator. Explaining the principles of powered flight.

"Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it." — Richard Feynman.

"Physics is like sex: I just don't get it." — RaefWolfe.

"I canna change the laws of physics, Captain — but I can find ye a loophole."

"Some things have to be believed to be seen." — Ralph Hodgson on ESP.

"The human race likes to give itself airs. One good volcano can produce more greenhouse gases in a year than the human race has in its entire history." — Ray Bradbury.

"It is odd, but on the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics." — Richard Feynman.

"The mole is a quantity of substance. The new prefix 'guaca' is defined such that one guacamole equals Avocado's Number." — G. Byrne.

"My goal is to be a meteorologist. But since I possess no training in meteorology, I suppose I should try stock brokerage." — Found in a resume.

"A seminar on time travel will be held two weeks ago."

Facts

"We are each entitled to our own opinion, but no one is entitled to his own facts." — Patrick Moynihan.

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." — Aldous Huxley (1894—1963).

"You won't like me when I'm angry. Because I always back up my rage with facts and documented sources." — The Credible Hulk.

"Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts is not necessarily science." — Henri Poincaré.

"The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views... which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering." — Dr Who.

"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true !" — Homer Simpson.

"When it comes to science, thou shalt ban the verb 'to believe' out of thy vocabulary."

"It's a poorly understood fact that any unwanted facts can simply go 'poof' if you scream LIBURAL LIBURAL LIBURAL over and over."

"Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on." — Winston Churchill.

"The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'evidence'."

"Facts mean nothing when they are preempted by appearance. Do not underestimate the power of impression over reality." — Brian Herbert, Dune House Harkonnen.

"There are two possible outcomes: if the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery." — Enrico Fermi (1901—1954), Italian physicist.

"The great tragedy of Science — the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact." — T. H. Huxley (1825-95), British biologist.

"As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life — so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls." — Matt Cartmill.

"Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'." — xkcd.

"That's not right. That's not even wrong." — Wolfgang Pauli.

"Reason, Observation, and Experience — the Holy Trinity of Science." — Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-99), US lawyer and agnostic.

"There's a common myth that evidence speaks for itself. It doesn't. It just sits there on the lab table, incapable of speaking."

"An approximate answer to the right problem is worth a good deal more than an exact answer to an approximate problem." — John Tukey.

"Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived from twitching of frogs' legs (especially if the frogs are decapitated) and that, on the other hand, any doctrine chiefly vouched for by the feelings of human beings (with heads on their shoulders) must be benighted and superstitious." — William James (1842—1910), US psychologist and philosopher.

"Never face facts; if you do, you'll never get up in the morning." — Marlo Thomas.

"There is no doubt that great revolutions of human scientific thought will occur in the next century, and in the century after that, and in thousands of centuries afterward. So which of our current pet scientific dogmas will be among the first washed away by new facts and sudden clarities ?" — Anonymous.

"A hypothesis or theory is clear, decisive, and positive, but it is believed by no one but the man who created it. Experimental findings, on the other hand, are messy, inexact things, which are believed by everyone except the man who did that work." — Harlow Shapley (1885—1972).

"These, Gentlemen, are the opinions upon which I base my facts." — Winston Churchill.

The Bomb

"Now we are all sons of bitches." — Kenneth Bainbridge (1904- ), US physicist. After the first atomic test.

"The way to win an atomic war is to make certain it never starts." — Omar Nelson Bradley (1893—1981), US general.

"An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind." — Gandhi.

"A nuclear war can ruin your whole day."

"If that's the only thing that's stopping war then thank God for the bomb." — Ozzy Osborne about nuclear deterrence.

"Of course the whole point is lost if you keep it a secret ! Why didn't you tell the world, eh ?" — Dr. Strangelove.

"Some of the more environmentally aware dinosaurs were worried about the consequences of an accident with the new Iridium enriched fusion reactor. 'If it goes off only the cockroaches and mammals will survive' they said." — Derek Tearne.

"If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker." — Albert Einstein (1879—1955), German-born US physicist. Reflecting on his role in the development of the atom bomb.

"Surely the right course is to test the Russians, not the bombs." — Hugh Gaitskell (1906-63), British Labour politician.

"Hitherto man had to live with the idea of death as an individual; from now onward mankind will have to live with the idea of its death as a species." — Arthur Koestler (1905-83), Hungarian-born British writer. Referring to the development of the atomic bomb.

"I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." — J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-67), US physicist. Quoting Vishnu from the Gita, at the first atomic test in New Mexico, 16 July 1945.

"Never pick a fight with a country that believes in reincarnation and has nuclear weapons."

"To adopt nuclear disarmament would be akin to behaving like a virgin in a brothel." — David Penhaligon (1944-86), British politician.

"We gave you an atomic bomb, what do you want, mermaids ?" — I. I. Rabi to the Atomic Energy Commission.

"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly." — Woody Allen.

"The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one." — Albert Einstein.

"Building up arms is not a substitute for diplomacy." — Samuel Pisar (1929- ), Polish-born US writer and lawyer.

"You may reasonably expect a man to walk a tightrope safely for ten minutes; it would be unreasonable to do so without accident for two hundred years." — Bertrand Russell (1872—1970), British philosopher. On the subject of nuclear war.

"I don't know how the third world war will be fought, but I do know that the fourth one will be fought with sticks and stones..." — Albert Einstein.

"Nuclear war could alleviate some of the factors leading to today's ecological disturbances that are due to current high population concentrations and heavy industrial production." — US Office of Civil Defense, 1982.

"It's summit time again... They're talking of partial nuclear disarmament. This is also like talking about partial circumcision. It's a strange thing. You either go all the way or you fucking forget it." — Robin Williams (1952- ), US actor.

"The only way to reduce the number of nuclear weapons is to use them." — Rush Limbaugh.

"A nuclear war can ruin your whole day." — Bumper Sticker.

"When you've seen one nuclear war, you've seen them all."

"It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a new bomber."

"If we get involved in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs damage my videotapes ?"

"Nuke them till they glow, then shoot them in the dark."

"I sometimes feel like I missed out by being born after the golden age of radium enemas." — dontthink.

"The bad news is that the Iranians have the bomb; the good news is that they're going to have to drop it from the back of a camel."

"An encounter with a beautiful woman is good medicine for the well organized logical mind a little jolt never hurt. Note that the anarchists have been saying this for years about the A-bomb and civilization." — Encyclopadia Apocryphia.

Biology & Medicine

"I have a sore throat."2000 BC : "Eat this root"1200 AD : "That root is heathen, say this prayer."1500 AD : "That prayer is superstition, drink this elixir."1800 AD : "That elixir is snake oil, Take this pill."1950 AD : "That pill is ineffective, Take this antibiotic."2000 AD : "That antibiotic is artificial, here why don't you eat this root." — A short history of medicine.

"It has recently been discovered that research causes cancer in rats."

"If rats are experimented on they will develop cancer." — Morton's Law.

"Cancer research is a growth industry." — George Carlin.

"A mouse is an animal that, if killed in sufficiently many and creative ways, will generate a PhD."

"Does the name Doctor Pavlov ring a bell ?"

"In the last analysis the entire field of psychology may reduce to biological electrochemistry." — Sigmund Freud.

"Back in my biology graduate school days, an important question upon opening the refrigerator was, 'Is this dinner or a project ?'." — Kozar.

"Stem cells are like toenail clippings with a better career plan." — Scott Adams.

"Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor)." — Alan Sokal (1955-), US mathematician and physicist.

"Evolution is a 'theory', just like gravity. If you don't like it, go jump off a bridge."

"There is no theory of evolution. Evolution is a fact. The theory is of how it happened."

"It is a lot better to come from an evolved monkey than from a fallen angel." — Marcellin Boule.

"What is notable about creation 'scientists' is that they never seem to accomplish anything of note in biology. Hardly any of them have publications in major scientific peer-reviewed journals. None have won any of the major scientific awards. While scientists who use evolution as a research tool are making discoveries not merely in evolution, but in fields as far afield as biochemistry, genetics, pharmacology, and molecular biology, creation 'scientists' don't seem to do anything but creation science. The ultimate test of a theory is how useful it is in providing a basis for discovery. Many scientists don't even care about evolutionary issues per se, any more than they care about number theory. They use evolutionary theory for the same reason that they use mathematics — because their experience has shown them that it is an indispensable tool in their own area of study." — tgibbs.

"Creationism is not a scientific alternative to natural selection any more than the stork theory is an alternative to sexual reproduction." — Hayes, 1996.

"People who believe the earth was created 6000 years ago, when it's actually 4.5 billion years old, should also believe the width of North America is 8 yards. That is the scale of the error." — Richard Dawkins.

"Anthropocentrism is a vice biologists are broken of early on. Religious people often find the idea that humans aren't special, that the world wasn't made just for us, positively abhorrent. Strangely these same religions often preach humility. What a contradiction." — sqrt(2).

"It is the creationists who blasphemously are claiming that God is cheating us in a stupid way." — J. W. Nienhuys.

"Personally I'd rather be adopted. Since it would mean that I was picked instead of randomly produced." — veryinky.

"I have a hunch that the unknown sequences of DNA will decode into copyright notices and patent protections." — Donald E. Knuth.

"I think scientists should stop wasting valuable resources trying to cure cancer and focus on more important issues, like keeping me from drooling in my sleep." — Bill Hewins.

"Saying that we should circumcise babies to protect them from HIV makes as much sense as saying we should give mastectomies to all young women to protect them from breast cancer."

"Make no doubt, we have the finest medical/patent science system in the United State of America that human greed can fashion." — Hackus.

"Support bacteria, it's the only culture some people have." — Bumper sticker.

"It is not a simple life to be a single cell, although I have no right to say so, having been a single cell so long ago myself that I have no memory at all of that stage of my life." — Lewis Thomas.

"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." — Edward Abbey.

"A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg." — Samuel Butler (1835—1902)

"Soon it will be a sin for parents to have a child which carries the heavy burden of genetic disease." — Bob Edwards.

"Staph only." — Seen on a clinical microbiology lab door.

"I am not a medical practitioner, but i do distribute rohypnol to coeds on occasion." — skrooyoo.

"Campaigns to bearproof all garbage containers in wild areas have been difficult because, as one biologist put it, 'There is a considerable overlap between the intelligence levels of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists'."

"— Did you hear about the homeopath who forgot to take his medicine ?— He died of an overdose."

"The human body was designed by a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area ?" — Robin Williams.

"An elephant is a mouse, built to government specifications." — John Herro.

"I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers." — A Bit of Fry and Laurie.

"Already for thirty-five years he had not stopped talking and almost nothing of fundamental value had emerged." — James Dewey Watson (1928- ), US geneticist. Referring to the British biophysicist Francis Crick with whom he discovered the structure of DNA (1953).

"Along with many scientists he considered the discovery of psychedelics one of the three major scientific breakthroughs of the twentieth century, the other two being the splitting of the atom and the manipulation of genetic structures." — Laura Huxley Referring to Aldous Huxley.

"There are more microbes per person than the entire population of the world. Imagine that. Per person. This means that if the time scale is diminished in proportion to that of space it would be quite possible for the whole story of Greece and Rome to be played out between farts." — Alan Bennett (1934- ), British dramatist and actor.

"Medical scientists are nice people, but you should not let them treat you." — August Bier (1861—1949), German surgeon.

"Life exists in the universe only because the carbon atom possesses certain exceptional properties." — James Jeans (1877—1946), British scientist.

"Water is H2O, hydrogen two parts, oxygen one, but there is also a third thing, that makes it water and nobody knows what that is." — D. H. Lawrence (1885—1930), British novelist.

"It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast." — Konrad Lorenz (1903-89), Austrian zoologist and pioneer of ethology.

"There are no such things as applied sciences, only applications of science." — Louis Pasteur (1822-95), French scientist.

"The people — could you patent the sun ?" — Jonas E. Salk (1914- ), US virologist. On being asked who owned the patent on his polio vaccine.

"You are 87% water; the other 13% keeps you from drowning." — P. E. Morris.

"Imagine a survivor of a failed civilization with only a tattered book on aromatherapy for guidance in arresting a cholera epidemic. Yet, such a book would more likely be found amid the debris than a comprehensible medical text." — James Lovelock.

"We've made great medical progress in the last generation. What used to be merely an itch is now an allergy." — Anonymous.

"Why is it that doctors call what they do 'practice' ?"

"Measure twice, cut once... and apply a firm pressure to stop the bleeding until the paramedics arrive."

"Organic life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the philosopher, and this development, we are assured, is indubitably an advance. Unfortunately it is the philosopher, not the protozoon, who gives us this assurance." — Bertrand Russell (1872—1970), British philosopher.

"Medicine, the only profession that labors incessantly to destroy the reason for its own existence." — James Bryce.

"My parents went to Zaire and all I got was this damn retrovirus..." — T-shirt.

Mathematics

"One of the chief triumphs of modern mathematics consists in having discovered what mathematics really is." — Bertrand Russell (1901).

"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell." — Saint Augustine.

"Math illiteracy strikes 8 out of 5 people."

"Dear algebra: stop asking us to find your X: he's not coming back."

"Life is good for only two things, discovering mathematics and teaching mathematics." — Siméon Poisson.

"Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes."

"I never could make out what those damned dots meant." — Lord Randolph Churchill (1849-95), British Conservative politician. Referring to decimal points.

"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality." — Albert Einstein (1879—1955).

"I'd like a large order of FiboNachos.""Okay sir, that'll cost as much as a small order and a medium order combined."

"Möbius strippers never show you their backsides."

"Why did the Chicken Cross the Mobius strip ?To get to the same side."

"All over China, parents tell their children to stop complaining and to finish their quadratic equations and trigonometric functions because there are sixty-five million American kids going to bed with no math at all." — Michael Cunningham.

"The creator of the universe works in mysterious ways. But he uses a base ten counting system and likes round numbers." — Scott Adams.

"What's it going to take for mathematicians to get some mainstream coverage ? A sex scandal ?" — GrimDawg.

"My math teacher staples burger king applications to failed tests."

"Gentlemen, e^(i*pi) + 1 = 0 is surely true, it is absolutely paradoxical; we cannot understand it, and we don't know what it means. But we have proved it, and therefore we know it must be truth." — Benjamin Peirce, 19th century Harvard mathematician.

"Which University department is second-cheapest to run ? Mathematics — all they need are pencils, paper and a bin.So, which University department is the cheapest to run ? Philosophy: they just need pencils and paper."

"Alcohol and calculus don't mix. Never drink and derive."

"The mathematician has reached the highest rung on the ladder of human thought." — Havelock Ellis (1859—1939).

"I think sex is better than logic, but I can't prove it."

"One has to be able to count, if only so that at fifty one doesn't marry a girl of twenty." — Maxim Gorky.

"Moriarty: — How are you at Mathematics ?Harry Secombe: — I speak it like a native." — Spike Milligan (1918-), British comic actor and author.

"Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater." — Albert Einstein.

"I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe — because, like Spinoza's God, it won't love us in return." — Bertrand Russell (1872—1970), British philosopher.

"The whole is more than the sum of the parts." — Aristotle (384-322 BC)

"I knew a mathematician who said 'I do not know as much as God. But I know as much as God knew at my age'." — Milton Shulman (1925-), Canadian writer, journalist, and critic.

"No, it is a very interesting number, it is the smallest number expressible as a sum of two cubes in two different ways." — Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887—1920), Indian mathematician. The mathematician G. H. Hardy had referred to the number '1729' as 'dull'.

"A sine curve goes off to infinity, or at least the end of the blackboard."

"Mathematicians do it in theory.Mathematicians take it to the limit."

"Engineers think that equations approximate the real world.Scientists think that the real world approximates equations.Mathematicians are unable to make the connection."

"Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin." — John Von Neumann.

"You aren't a real engineer until you make one $50000 mistake."

"The optimist says the glass is half full, the pessimist say the glass is half empty, the engineer says the glass is too large, the optometrist says the glasses are half-price and the thirsty guy says: 'Hey, who drank my water ?'"

"Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math." — Bumper sticker.

"It is rare to find learned men who are clean, do not stink and have a sense of humour." — Montesquieu (1689—1755) about Leibniz (1646—1716).

"The reason that every major university maintains a department of mathematics is that it's cheaper than institutionalizing all those people."

"It was mentioned on CNN that the new prime number discovered recently is four times bigger than the previous record." — John Blasik.

"Algoreithm /n/ a computational procedure whereby a majority is made equivalent to a minority by factoring in nine." — Jim Rosenberg.

"Q: Do you know what is the square root of 69 ?A: Ate something (8.xxxxxxx....)"

"There are 3 kinds of people: those who can count and those who can't." — Bumper sticker.

"Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever when they are only wasting their time." — George Bernard Shaw.

"The number you have dialed is imaginary. Rotate phone 90 degrees and try again."

"Statistics will prove anything, even the truth." — Noël Moynihan (1916- ), British doctor and writer.

"I am one of the unpraised, unrewarded millions without whom Statistics would be a bankrupt science. It is we who are born, who marry, who die, in constant ratios." — Logan Pearsall Smith (1865—1946), US writer.

"A single death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic." — Joseph Stalin.

"It is bad luck to be superstitious."

"Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry."

"I feel like a fugitive from the law of averages." — William H. Mauldin.

"It is now proved beyond doubt that smoking is one of leading causes of statistics." — Fletcher Knebel.

"There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up." — Rex Todhunter Stout (1886—1975), US writer.

"I gather, young man, that you wish to be a Member of Parliament. The first lesson that you must learn is, when I call for statistics about the rate of infant mortality, what I want is proof that fewer babies died when I was Prime Minister than when anyone else was Prime Minister. That is a political statistic." — Winston Churchill.

"There was the high-ranking officer in WWII who spent months counting all the bullet holes on the returning bombers, then did a big presentation on how those areas should have armor added. At the end of his presentation a lower-ranking officer asked 'Shouldn't we, instead, add more armor to those areas that are only lightly holed ? After all, this sample represents only the planes that came back'."

"Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember, it didn't work for the rabbit !" — R.E. Shay.

"Statistics: on average, not very useful."

Murphy's Laws

"Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem." — Occam's Razor.

"Entropy isn't what it used to be."

"Things get worse under pressure." — Murphy's Law of Thermodynamics.

"The three laws of thermodynamics: (1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit."

"Any inanimate object, regardless of its composition or configuration, may be expected to perform at any time in a totally unexpected manner for reasons that are either totally obscure or completely mysterious." — Dr. Fyodor Flap.

"Numbers written on restaurant bills within the confines of restaurants do not follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces of paper in any other parts of the Universe." — Douglas Adams (1952—2001).

"WARNING: Do not look into laser with remaining eye !" — Sign found at MIT's Junior Lab.

"We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run." — Amara's Law.

"The future, according to some scientists, will be exactly like the past, only more expensive." — John Sladek.

"The percentage of working hardware in the world is constant." — Tuttle's Law.

"A person who lives in luxury and has clearly spent a lot of money must obviously have sufficient income to pay as tax. Alternatively, a person who lives frugally and shows no sign of being wealthy must have substantial savings and can therefore afford to pay it as tax." — John Morton, tax collector for King Henry VII of England.

"Of course there is learning without teaching. It's just commonly referred to by another name: science."

"When something is used to its full potential it will break." — Poulsen's Theorem

"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is."

"Grantarctica /n./ The cold, isolated place where scientists without funding dwell."

The Science Graduate asks "How does it work ?"The Economics Graduate asks "How much does it cost ?"The Engineering Graduate asks "How can we make it ?"The Liberal Arts Graduate asks "Do you want fries with that ?"— Jesse N. Schell.

"An engineer makes a $500 item with $50 worth of parts. A designer then adds $450 worth of crap."

"There are many questions which fools can ask that wise men cannot answer." — George Polyá (1887—1985).

"The 2 most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity."

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." — Albert Einstein.

"If Einstein was so smart how come people only call you 'Einstein' when you do something really stupid ?" — Brian Regan.

"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live in the real world." — Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden.

"No one wants to learn from mistakes, but we cannot learn enough from successes to go beyond the state of the art." — Henry Petroski.

"Science is a good thing. News reporters are good things too. But it's never a good idea to put them in the same room." — Scott Adams.

"The best substitute for brains is silence."

"The country is accustomed to having foreign workers come here for unpleasant, low-paying jobs such as fruit picking. Why shouldn't engineering go the same way ?" — Richard F. Etter.

"We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like ?" — Jean Cocteau (1889—1963).

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." — Galileo Galilei.

"Better to understand a little than to misunderstand a lot."

"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate." — Bumper sticker.

"The gene pool could use a little chlorine." — Bumper sticker.

"The problem with the gene pool is that there is no life guard."

"Neurotics build dream castles, psychotics live in them and psychiatrists collect the rent."

"That is the essence of science: ask an impertinent question, and you are on the way to the pertinent answer." — Jacob Bronowski (1908-74), British scientist and writer.

"No one should approach the temple of science with the soul of a money changer." — Thomas Browne (1605-82), English physician and writer.

"Mystics always hope that science will some day overtake them." — Booth Tarkington (1869—1946), US novelist.

"Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know." — Bertrand Russell (1872—1970), British philosopher.

"The term Science should not be given to anything but the aggregate of the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature." — Paul Valéry (1871—1945), French poet and writer.

"It is, of course, a bit of a drawback that science was invented after I left school." — Lord Carrington (1919- ), British statesman.

"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong." — Arthur C. Clarke (1917- ), British science-fiction writer.

"When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion — the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right." — Isaac Asimov (1920—1992), in answer to Clarke's First Law.

"Science is always wrong. It never solves a problem without creating ten more." — George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950), Irish dramatist and critic.

"Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition." — Adam Smith (1723-90), Scottish economist.

"Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought." — Albert Szent-Györgyi (1893-92), Hungarian-born US biochemist.

"But in science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs." — Francis Darwin (1848—1925), British scientist.

"Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce." — John F. Kennedy (1917-63), US statesman. Inaugural Address, 20 Jan 1961.

"Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification." — Karl Popper (1902—1994), Austrian-born British philosopher.

"Should we force science down the throats of those that have no taste for it ? Is it our duty to drag them kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century ? I am afraid that it is." — George Porter (1920- ), British chemist.

"The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas." — Linus Pauling.

"What is the use of a new-born child ?" — Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790), on being asked the use of a new invention.